


The fighter

by jesseofthenorth



Category: Marvel Universe - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesseofthenorth/pseuds/jesseofthenorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My initial notes stated : <i>Phil is under cover? as a nurse? or something less stupid. he is monitoring Dr Donald Blake for SHIELD when he meets Clint Barton, beat up fighter. Would love for this to be Phil the badass agent and Clint his civilian boyfriend.</i> I got everything but the boyfriend bit. It goes without saying Coulson is still a badass... off-screen</p>
            </blockquote>





	The fighter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the AU:alternate professions square on my [](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://trope-bingo.dreamwidth.org/)**trope_bingo** card.
> 
> **Author's Note 2.0:** Sorry for lameass title.

 

Clint could, once upon a time, admit, but only to himself, he would never be great. He'd never be much more than he was, a second rate fighter who got the crap pounded out of him for a fee. That wasn't the part he couldn't say out loud. The thing he thinks he kept deep inside was that he deserved it.

All the shitty choices he'd made, from robbing his first grocery store with Barney; to walking away, 3 days before Barney got busted robbing a liquor store by himself; the look on Barney's face the last time Clint saw him through the jail safety glass, "Fuck you. don't ever come back"; the last guy they'd robbed together, the one who was so sure Clint was going to kill him. All of it haunted Clint and every hit to face or shot to the ribs or knee in the gut, he took it all and nothing made the other shit go away. Because he deserved those hits, everyone of them.

The last fight ended bad, Clint hit the mat hard. Now there he sat beat to shit; yet another concussion, probably a broken orbital bone, definitely broken ribs, one eye swelled shut and his left wrist twice it's normal size. He hadn’t even gotten paid for the fight yet, and when he did this trip to the hospital would eat the whole thing. He tried not to let the thought get him down. It kinda came with the territory.

The thing that was new, was sitting in an ER at midnight, talking to a man named Phil Coulson.

When he'd first been rolled in Dr Blake took one look at Clint, tagged him for a trip to X ray and sent a guy in a suit to talk to him. Phil Coulson, in his perfect suit, with his neat hair and smile lines around his eyes, took one look at Clint and laid it out plain. Looking at Clint's battered face and defensive body language.

Phil Coulson's face was gentle but his words were not "Stop fighting or you'll die. At the very least you could lose the sight in that eye or end up with your brain so scrambled you won't be able to tie your own shoes. There are much quicker and cleaner ways to kill yourself Mr Barton” Coulson said.

The words, the look on this kind-eyed man's face, cut a cold sharp line across Clint's chest and he slammed the lid tight on the voice in the back of his head, the one that said " finally", a voice that sounded exactly like Barney’s, the voice that always urged Clint to chase down his own end.

Clint nodded but said nothing, not only because his whole fucking face hurt too much to risk opening his mouth but also because there was nothing he could say to that. Clint knew the time had come, to decide. Step away from the life or carry on. Live or die, Move forward or stay stuck in his guilt until it killed him. Or fight until there was so little left of him that he wouldn't care anyway. The suddenly real possibility that fighting might leave Clint useless and so battered he couldn't function opened the cold pit in his stomach wide.

By the time he came back from X ray it was breaking light outside. Clint was moved into a room with four other beds, curtains around them all. The nurse patted his hand gently told him to buzz if he needed anything and closed the curtain behind her. He didn't sleep. Instead he tried to think it through, what he would do next. Because there was no doubt in Clint's mind that he had to stop. He wasn't ready to die or worse yet carry on until he was physically ruined. His body, his strength, god his _vision_ was all he really had going for him. For over half his life Clint had used his body to extremes, making enough to live on but never gaining any ground. He didn't know if he could do anything else. But it was time to try.

He didn't see Phil Coulson again in the three days he was in the hospital, and for that Clint was sorry. He at least would have liked to thank the man for being so blunt with him, it was probably the only thing that would have worked.

Clint stepped out of the hospital, into a fall morning crisp and clear, and for the first time in years, full of possibility. One arm in a cast, a script in his pocket for pain meds and antibiotics, beat to hell but not beat down, Clint flagged a cab and got on with it.

****

Phil's undercover came to an end, he wrote his report about Dr Donald Blake and went on to the next assignment. Occasionally he thought about the very young man with battered face and the bright blue but too-old eyes. Phil wondered if the young man, Barton, had found his way through or had he gone back to fighting.

One of the worst things about undercover work was the fact that he never got the answers to some questions. Never knew what became of the people on the periphery of a case. That wasn't his job and no matter how much he sometimes he wanted to Phil couldn't follow up. He had a job to do and that wasn't it. It didn't stop him from wondering sometimes.

He wasn't wondering about it when he stepped into the diner three blocks the from his building late one night, intent on the staying on his feet long enough to inhale some of their incredible meatloaf and roast red potatoes. He wasn't thinking about anyone of a dozen intriguing people he had met since leaving the Rangers to follow Marcus to SHIELD. He was, in fact, thinking about whether he should have coffee or a glass of juice with his dinner and if he'd have room for a slice of their granny smith apple pie afterwards. He was deciding he should have coffee so he could keep his eyes open long enough to get some paperwork done when he got home. He wasn't even really paying more than peripheral attention to who else was in the diner, no more than he usually did.

So it was a complete shock when he heard someone say "Mr Coulson?" and looked up into a pair of startlingly blue eyes. Blue eyes in a face that was no longer haggard and battered but still vaguely familiar.

" Barton? Clint Barton?"

And that was the first time Phil Coulson met Clint Barton _retired_ MMA fighter.

This entry was originally posted at <http://jesseofthenorth.dreamwidth.org/243450.html>. Please comment here or there using OpenID.


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